stand as high as it does in other respects. The Ninth Kansas, from the want of thorough discipline, is in the field more like a band of independent rangers than a compact body of soldiers. In regard to military bearing, instruction, drills, care of horses, police, and personal cleanliness it is far below the standard of good soldiers. The Third Wisconsin Cavalry is reported generally in good condition. The Third Arkansas Cavalry is on outpost duty at Lewisburg. Since it has been there, in different skirmishes, the regiment has killed about 500 of the enemy, They have suffered much from the want of forage. The records of my office will afford particulars in reference to any regiment or supply department works, of defense, &c., in the Department of Arkansas except the District of the Frontier, which is now being evacuated.

I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN M. WILSON,

Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Inspector-General.

HDQRS. MILITARY DIVISION OF WEST MISSISSIPPI, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF SIGNAL OFFICER,
New Orleans, La., January 21, 1865.

Lieutenant Colonel C. T. CHRISTENSEN,

Asst. Adjt. General, Military Division of West Mississippi:

COLONEL: I have the honor to submit to your consideration the following report of information received at this office this 21st day of January, 1865: J. D. Howell, a refugee, left Mobile December 27, 1864. States that a part of Forrest's cavalry (about 2,200 men), under Actg. Brigadier General Robert McCulloch, with three small pieces of artillery (6-pounders), and Colonel John Scott's command, from Clinton, Miss. (composed of from 1,200 to 1,500 Maury's regiment of cavalry (numbering 1,200 men), composed of citizens of Mobile and vicinity, armed with miscellaneous weapons and very inefficient, are on the Pascagoula road facing and watching General Granger. McCulloch's command, 2,200; Scott's command, 1,350; Maury's command, 1,200; total, 4,750. The horses of these commands are in extremely bad condition, and the men are sullied with only about one-quarter rations. Colonel Fuller commands the artillery defending Mobile. The most important battery is a naval battery called the Missouri Battery, situated on the point just below the site of the old light-house. This battery mounts nine guns (7-inch) and is commanded by Captain Bennett, late of the U. S. Navy. The rebel gun-boats are the Nashville, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, and Morgan. The Nashville is a powerful side-wheel boat, at least equal to the ram Tennessee (captured last August); 268 feet long, 75 feet beam, carries the best engines (two in number in the Confederacy, and runs twelve or fifteen miles an hour. She mounts ten guns - two bow guns, throwing 210-pound shot, and eight 7-inch rifles. The missile used is called the "punch-headed shot. " The iron plating of the boat is about six inches thick from the bow back to the wheel-house, formed of transverse bars six inches wide by three inches thick. Her crew numbers 250. The Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, which are floating batteries rather than gun-boats, run only about four miles an hour. They mount four guns each. Torpedoes, containing each 100 pounds of powder, are planted across the mouth of Dog River, and thence at an angle of 90 degrees to the middle channel of the bay, a distance of one